


Ripples

by patchworkgirl



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 07:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/821666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworkgirl/pseuds/patchworkgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Todd and Kurt wind up sharing the strangest possible Christmas and find there's really no right place and time to be what they are, but there's a little good in the world for all that. What's the brotherhood goon got in common with the blue boy-scout? Besides mastery over gravity, anyway. Life keeps throwing things at the poor little mutants and the best they've got is each other. This is the start of a very long work with romance kicking in later and lots of plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Weihnachten!" Bamf. "Weihnachten!" Bamf. "Weihnach-" Bam. "Guten Morgan, Papi." Kurt teetered and caught himself with his tail before he wound up on the floor. He really hoped he wasn't as tall as he was going to get, because he felt just a little silly being almost seventeen and being dwarfed by his father. It didn't occur to him to worry too much about banging into him. Too much sugar in him for that.

" _Kurt... It's not quite five yet."_

" _It's still morning. It's been morning since midnight. That's the rule."_

" _Have you been to bed?"_

_"...Yes._ _When Mama sent me. I stayed for three hours."_  
  
 _"I think you were seven years old last time you did this."_

_"And I was too short to reach the cookies, then."_ A few smudges of confectioner's sugar on his fingers made further elaboration unnecessary. Fur held the stuff like nothing else. His grin faded a bit as he gave that a moment's thought. " _Did_ _I wake you up?"  
_  
" _N_ _o, you woke up your mother and she passed along the favor. She's getting dressed."  
_  
Kurt guiltily turned his gaze to the floor. "S _orry. You guys can go back to bed. I have plenty to do. I'm going to send Christmas emails to everyone from school and I might need to fix the star again and I could bring in some more firewood..."  
_  
 _"We_ _'re up, Kurt."_ said his mother, coming down the stairs with a grin almost as silly as her son's. " _Tel_ _l me, how many people is that for you to send season's greetings?"_  
  
He fell into step beside her, reveling in how happy she was. He'd done them more good with his news from the last few years than he felt like he'd managed in his whole life before that. Just listing off the friends he'd made and the places they lived seemed like enough to chase away the sleepy fog of waking up before dawn. He gladly kept chattering as he set the little porcelain baby in the creche, ported up to the ceiling to adjust the star just a few millimeters, carefully ignored the presents under the tree with all the self-possession almost seventeen years had wrought.

Not being able to go to mass or join extended family with their little blue goblin in tow had resulted in a hodgepodge of traditions in the Wagner family.

Kurt helped his mother bring breakfast out once he'd finally run out of cheerful reassurances that life as a real person was as good as he'd always hoped. He collapsed in silence between his parents on the couch. It was a bit of a tight fit these days, but Papi threw an arm around him and he managed to find a position that wouldn't put his tail to sleep. Sipping spiced and oversweetened coffee (he didn't really need so much sugar now, but he hadn't wanted to correct Mama), the last doubts fell away.

Finding out about his biological parentage (well, half of it) had thrown him into confusion. He'd desperately wanted answers and he'd expected to find some kind of new, exciting connection there. The truth was supposed to fix things. But all he'd gained from Mystique was a new and exciting landscape of empty hopes and ugly questions. He still wanted answers. Maybe he even wanted a relationship not based in combat.

But there'd been nothing missing.

Kurt went from almost nodding off (of course, a _fter_ he'd had sugar and caffeine and the sun was creeping up he was tired) to raising his mug into the air in a lopsided salute. "God bless us, every one!"

"Huh?" His mother raised a sardonic eyebrow.

"S _orry. Kitty had me watch the movie before I left."  
_

* * *

Some things never change. A truce, a crop of earnest students, a hopeful new world... None of it could really keep Magneto placated for long. And he was a man who appreciated minions.

Todd had almost been honored to be brought along. He'd figured he was probably there to be the scapetoad, or maybe just canon fodder, but this was important shit. Mutant enhancement stuff. He was still sore about missing out the first time around and to hear the rumors it hadn't worked out all that great, but it could still be cool, being extra-toad. And it was pretty depressing to hang around Bayville and watch all the light-up snowmen twinkling for everyone else. That was definitely a big factor in agreeing to this stupid trip.

He'd regretted it plenty after traveling at hellish speeds in a big metal ball. Everyone else said you couldn't even feel the motion, but Todd relied a lot on being aware of balance and space. Anyone would be clumsy with a spine like his, and the fact that spent a good half his time not flat on his face was the miracle. He knew when he was moving, and at speeds most aircraft couldn't handle.

He'd regretted it even more when he'd discovered his job was getting up the walls to scout, working on the theory that ice wouldn't be that big a problem. It wasn't for sticking, but he thought his fingers might just break off.

"Freakin' Magneto," he muttered as he crested the wall. And then, because that wasn't satisfying enough, he added in as close as he could get to a snotty, cultured voice, "No, I'm not gonna use my powers, 'cus professor Baldy or some other ass might freakin' notice on a stupid freakin' computer. ...Suck up." Though he almost resented the implication that Cerebro wouldn't even bother with detecting a little Toad-slime even within a "high-priority monitored perimeter," whatever that was supposed to mean. Heck, he didn't even know where they were on the whole freakin' globe. The Himalayas, probably. Sure felt like it.

Todd didn't have the head for geography that might have tipped him off about the chances of a castle topping Mount Everest.

He'd been assured there wasn't any working security here, and that the inaccessibility of the area would have kept out the sparse locals. Of course, if they were sure of that they wouldn't have needed a scout, would they?

The space between the wall and the castle was covered in about three feet of snow (or, approximately, one crouched Todd, yuck). It looked kinda weird and creepy, but how was the approach to a castle with a secret lab supposed to look?

He had trouble getting the door open and eventually just wriggled in through the crack he could manage. "Hella rusty, yo." Maybe scouting meant he was supposed to be quiet. He wasn't in the mood.

Inside was way creepier. Todd could recognize that something had been lab equipment, and while the glass and plastic was just dusty and gross, what had been metal was falling apart. He still hadn't been fired on by secret magnet-laser cannons, but he suspected it might be a matter of time.

Sure, it wasn't like you could t _rust_ Pietro to not be a total dick and just use his powers anyway, and Wanda was a lady and all, and no one was gonna let that freaky Pyro guy near delicate equipment. But the refrain of why-me kept up steadily with every hop.

Right. Creepy lab stuff, not much sign that anyone had been here since, like, microwaves were invested or something, and no scary surprises. Not that were set off by a skinny teenager poking around, anyhow. Back to base.

Todd was hopping back down to the woods side of the wall when his walkie-talkie crackled to life. The theory was that the more primitive technology wouldn't attract attention. Todd had decided not to point out that anyone could tune into those channels if they felt like it. No one listened to the Toad. He just hoped the locals all spoke Himalayan.

"Change of plans, Toad. Hightail it back to base. Or... whatever it is you do."

It was probably a bad idea to be amused at what the crappy speaker did to Pietro's voice. "Was headed that way already, yo."

"Didn't do a very good job, then, didja?  _F_ _ather_ says hurry."

He sort of wanted to punch Pietro in the mouth every time he said  _f_ _aaaaather._ Oh, well. "Hurryin'. Whatevs."

He mostly ignored the annoying little demands from the speaker as he did his best to hurry. Snow like this would have been a lousy medium for anyone to move in. Todd was swamped every time he hit a drift and even tried to just walk for a while. But that was just as tiring. Three miles, they said. More like three... million miles. He'd be wittier when he wasn't dying of hypothermia.

He was nearly there, and ready to be happy to ride a mach-five hell marble back to Bayville, when a little whining hum from somewhere ahead sent him into a panic. They wouldn't have, would they? Sure, he was disposable. He was along because he barely counted as having powers and someone needed to go check the place out. He was Toad.

But they wouldn't go that far, right?

When he arrived back in the little clearing where he'd left everyone, out of breath and feeling a cold that had nothing to do with winter, it was deserted. Not even an empty ball. The only sign that anyone had been here was a note stuck on a weird-shaped icicle.

_H_ _ad to book it pinged by radar should be canned goods and fuel at the castle good luck with the_ _generator its got ceramic parts i guess Wanda says she hates you back in a couple weeks when it dies down byebye_  
  
Yeah, Pietro did tend to write the way he talked.

"Aw, babycakes, you couldn't put in a good word for me? I'd of got here in another five minutes." Grousing quietly helped him pretend he was just indignant. Indignant and not ditched in the Himalayas in the middle of winter by what was supposed to be his team.

Todd lasted about an hour hiding out in the creepy-ass castle. He had found food, and was more willing than most to count beans and spam as edible. He'd even dredged up a couple cans of kerosene that didn't seem to have sprung any leaks. He figured if all the liquid dinosaurs had lasted a million years underground, they'd probably be good in a can for a decade or two. So he probably wasn't gonna die.

But he was pretty sure he'd go nuts. Even if Pietro had just been messing with him and they'd be back soon. Something about a giant, empty, mad-sciencey castle mysteriously didn't work for him. He felt like he was gonna get dissected. Snow was better.

And it was kinda nice out when he didn't try to move too much. He'd actually gotten some good loot out of agreeing to come. The coat was a lot more solid than any he'd owned before, and the stupid hat and mittens were doing their job. The icy woods were pretty in a way that a city boy didn't get a lot of chances to appreciate.

He didn't even worry about getting lost. It wasn't snowing, and the sky was clear, so he could just follow his own footprints back.

In fact, once he'd clambered up a tree and chilled a while, he almost started to feel cool about things. He wasn't gonna convince himself it was a sign of trust that they'd buzzed off without him, but maybe it'd be nice to have time to himself. He never liked having people around for the holidays. Or, well, in general. He'd gone to that ski lodge the one time. Maybe the snow here was deeper and the mountains plain freakier than anything you'd see in New York (even if you counted the state, which Todd, as a native of the City, really didn't). But he'd be cool.

When it started to get dark, he slid down the tree and turned back toward his super creepy bat motel. And found himself staring down a huge, canine muzzle and a mountain of black fur.

Hedy was getting on in years, showing plenty of gray and slower than she'd been in her youth. She spent a lot more time sleeping by the fireplace these days than patrolling the yard for intruders. But if anything would rouse the old fire in the Belgian shepherd, it was having her boy back. The dog had been born blind, and fearlessness in the face of nighttime and no trouble with blue fuzz had made her an ideal protector. And smell was more than enough to tell her that he was bigger and happier now, but still her same old Kurt after all this time. And now he was allowed to go running with her. It was beyond an old dog to guess why that might be, but she didn't care.

She'd left him behind a little ways, since he was inclined to c _heating_ at chase now in a way that smelled like rotten eggs. He was trying to be sneaky now, but she always knew where he was.

But here was a new smell, a person smell, if a weird one. And strange people were not allowed near Kurt. That was the biggest, most important rule of all. When the person-smell landed in front of her, she pulled her teeth back and summoned up the most fearsome growl she could manage.

The person-shape obliged her by screaming.

Kurt was pulled from his cheerful stalking pursuit with an unpleasant jolt. He'd promised to stay out in the deep woods for just this reason. You couldn't teach an old dog new tricks, like not menacing anyone she didn't consider pack before they got close enough to spot the blue kid. And even if she was down a few teeth these days, she could definitely scare someone. He was more worried about Hedy getting hurt, really. She was getting delicate in her golden years.

But he couldn't port in front of some poor hiker. Kurt ran full tilt, kicking up a sheet of snow behind him and bending so low his inducer was a little confused by it. As soon as he could see the black dog and someone in a coat, he started babbling. "Entschuldigung, entschuldigung, es tut mir leid," he managed breathlessly. "Hedy! Bist du ein böser Hund." Which she clearly didn't believe, going ahead with growling. While wagging her tail. She'd never been great at menacing.

All nonsense to Todd, and not very relevant with the hellbeast growling at him. But he did peek up from under his stupid hat. And oh what the hell. "...Fuzzy?"

Kurt stopped mid-scold. His first thought was that he just got no vacations, ever, apparently. Then that it was pretty low of the Brotherhood to harass people on Christmas. On other continents. Then that that was pretty messed up. Didn't they have families? Then it finally penetrated that the Toad looked as surprised to see him as he was to have the slimeball crawl up a few kilometers from  _his verdammt house.  
_  
With a touch of melodrama (because no occasion was too serious, was it?), Kurt dropped onto the snow carelessly enough to give his tail a jolt. He covered his face in his hands and muttered, "Go ahead and eat him, Hedy."

Unfortunately, since Kurt hadn't run or poofed away, which was what the rules generally demanded, Hedy was too confused to keep being scary and went to lick his face instead.

Todd blinked a couple times, debating bolting into the trees and never being seen again. "You, uh, why do you got a bear, dawg?"

Kurt peeked out between his fingers, looking as disgruntled as his good-natured face would let him. "Hedy was twenty-five kilos at her best. Remind me to introduce you to a leonberger someday."

Knowing about as much about metric conversions as Eurasian mountain ranges, Todd had nothing to say to that. The giant bear-wolf did look a little less intimidating now that she seemed more interested in eating blue boy. Or sitting on him. Yeah, that worked. "Um..." Todd did not appreciate dogs. He went ahead and backed up a step. "So, uh, say I was curious. Where are we right now?" It wasn't like anyone's opinion of him could get w _orse._

"Seriously?" Kurt straightened up a little more, eyeing him with more confusion than hostility now. Seemed to be a real question. "Wow. Um, you're in the Bavarian Alps." After a moment's pause, he thought to add, "In Deutschland."

Which explained why the elf had been talking alien language to him at first. Boy, Germans sounded angry all the time. Maybe it was no wonder they were always invading stuff with submarines.

(What Todd had and had not retained from his academic career was unpredictable and usually rested on what was explodey.)

"Awesome. Um, so, I'm... gonna go now." What else was he supposed to do? Todd turned to hop off, hoping that landing in his own faceplant-prints would make the trip easier.

"Oh, hold on, Toad," Kurt said irritably, finally standing up. "I'm not about to find the Brotherhood on my doorstep and just wish you a merry Christmas. What are you doing here?"

"Doorstep?" Todd looked around in honest confusion.

"I'm a few kilomet- Never mind." He didn't think he was being pumped for information, because who would give the  _T_ _oad_ that job? But might as well show some common sense. "How is it that you don't know what country you're in and yet you're practically in my back yard? On Christmas." He couldn't help adding the last part.

Todd sighed, decided he didn't owe those jerks anything, and quickly spilled the story. He was paying close enough attention that even in the fading light he saw the Crawler's face suddenly go from annoyed to blank when he got to the part about the castle.

A moment passed in silence when he was done. Fuzzy's voice was oddly flat, and the effect was as unsettling as the castle as the dark gathered around them. He could only really see outlines, and memory supplied the gleaming eyes under the illusion. "Magneto sent you to look at a castle near here?"

To Todd, that was the most normal part of the story. Magneto. Scary castles full of science just seemed like they were in that guy's line. Some people were into football or the Weather Chanel or lady shoes. Magneto was into scary castles.

"Where is it?"

The weird softness in Furball's voice made Todd less reluctant to talk. That and spite. "Up that way? I came downhill pretty much the whole way."

"You're pretty lucky, then," came the response. he could swear it was getting darker. "Everyone around here knows to stay away from there. The cliffs are unstable and every road anyone's tried to put in gets washed out. Can't even hike up, usually. Compasses are pretty... Oh."

Well, if Kurt had known to look when he still lived here, if he'd had the time or the guts to think about it... Logically, it couldn't be very far away, could it? Not for a baby to have survived shooting down a river. Kurt stood up slowly, resting one hand on Hedy's head to quiet a concerned whine. "Show me."

"Uh, whoa, now, that ain't a good idea, yo." Todd might have done it if he weren't being so creepy and it weren't pretty much night now. He was going to have trouble finding his way back at all with just a trail in the snow to follow. "It's, uh, too late, and... And won't your folks be lookin' for yah?"

Kurt immediately felt several layers of guilt, the most immediate being that he'd absolutely been ready to walk out on them. Not just on Christmas night, but when they were barely comfortable with his going off their land with his inducer. "You're right. Tomorrow."

"Kay," Todd said before he'd thought about it. He was used to obeying anyone who sounded that authoritative. He wouldn't have thought the freak had it in him. Always seemed like one of the wussier X-geeks.

And besides, he could probably figure something out by tomorrow.

"I'll meet you here, I guess?" With some effort, Kurt was sounding more normal. Quiet, but the whispery monotone was gone. "Wait, how are you finding your way around? Experienced hikers get lost in these woods." One of many things that had kept him in the house during daylight hours, and nearby after dark.

"Followin' the Toad Road, dawg." Todd jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the odd trail he'd left.

"That's going to be snowed over," Kurt observed.

"Hey, lookit the sky. Ain't a cloud in it."

"Welcome to the Alps, city boy," Kurt scoffed with something approaching his usual good humor. He didn't really have anything against Toad, after all. He was pretty much a nuisance at worst. It was mostly shock that had made him so crabby. "No one wants to find a Toadsicle come spring."

"Ew, man." Todd tried not to look worried. "I'm cool."

"That's a lie." Kurt closed his eyes, gathering courage for the decent thing to do. "You want to follow me back home?"

He opened his mouth to immediately agree, then thought better of it. Between getting lost and freezing and intruding on a happy family around a Christmas tree, he'd pick the messy death anytime. Nice as being warm sounded... "Nah, don't hate you enough to make you explain this shit to your family. Take the bear an' head home. I'll be here tomorrow. Afternoon or somethin'."

Trying to shake the idea that he was about to be responsible for a frozen teenager if he didn't press the issue, Kurt shrugged. He really didn't like that idea either. "Okay, if you say so. Uh... be careful. People around here, um, might kind of know to look out for mutants."

"Gotcha," Todd said, accepting the warning and all the baggage and issues that came unspoken with it.

Kurt scratched Hedy behind the ears and turned to go. "Uh, Merry Christmas, Tolansky."

"Sure thing, blue boy," was the only reply.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Todd had mixed feelings about going back. Stupid X-geek had been right and it had snowed a little in the morning, but not so much that he couldn't follow the trail of bounding teenager. And if he didn't show, well, the trail was just as easy to follow back to him. The Crawler, while creepy, wasn't one of your nastier goody-goodies, but he'd seemed seriously intense last night.

Which was how Todd came to discover that forests had a nasty habit of dumping big piles of snow and making gaps that could be pretty easily mistaken for a snowed-on toad track. He did eventually find his way to the spot where furball's bear had cornered him. He was still the first one, though. Inevitable consequence of making their meeting time "afternoon or something."

He was getting used to the cold, and his gear had held up ok. Hanging out in the same tree as before, he conceded to liking the way the light hit the frozen landscape but still preferring real buildings made of glass and concrete and full of stuff that wasn't creepy lab equipment.

Kurt had woken up after a restless night thinking he'd run out the door as soon as he could, but his nerve failed about the moment he stepped out of his room. It was next to his parents' and not just because the house wasn't very big. While trying to give him his privacy, they'd always had to balance that with having a kid who sometimes decided to hang off the ceiling and suddenly run out of tail strength. Or, in more regrettable incidents, attempted to work out how to use his father's razor and did some damage to a fuzzy little arm before he'd been caught at it.

They were still asleep, but he could hear snoring and shifting. He wasn't ready yet. Kurt ported downstairs and followed the very exacting instructions in the cookbook his culinary wizard of a mother kept written out for her less gifted husband and son. He tried to hurry and keep the noise down, and he was glad to let his parents pretend he hadn't woken them up with the smell and noise and serve waffles and coffee in bed. Der zweite Weihnachtstag and waffles seemed like a natural association to him.

Then there was a game of Chinese Checkers and walking Hedy together and driving to a church far enough away that no one would know to aim glares at his parents or look twice at the perfectly ordinary boy with them. When they came back, the grown-ups headed up for a nap, and Kurt dashed off a note about a walk before dashing off. If he waited any longer he'd chicken out again.

He arrived only about fifteen minutes after Todd, but he got a very baleful look for his trouble anyway. "Been turnin' into a popsicle up here, Nightcreeper."

"Sorry." He really was, though mostly because he was just about everything right now. What little sleep he'd had had been plagued by creepy dreams. He didn't want to get anywhere near that castle, but it was the place he most needed to be in the world.

Todd jumped down beside him. "No bear, huh? S'this way." He hopped along ahead through the new impressions his hopping had made. "What's your damage about this place, anyways?"

"Um, I just thought I should check it out. Since, um, the professor..." He trailed off, not even bothering to come up with a coherent story. When Kurt had spent time in the woods before on this visit, he'd hurled himself between trees and spun around the branches delightedly. Better than any danger room. Now he just hiked along, arms crossed over his chest.

Todd had a certain amount of respect for really shitty lies. He had that problem himself sometimes. "Whatever, fool." He hopped along quietly for a little ways, but this was a long trip. Having the elf along was weird enough without total silence. Todd wasn't good at shutting up.

"Whatcha up to? Like, what's Kraut Christmas all about?" He didn't actually want to know, because happy people around the holidays turned his stomach (and it took a lot to do that). But other things he knew to ask about were the freaky dog and the fact that it was snowy.

Kurt managed to crack a smile. "Kraut? Is it 1923?"

"Yeah, we're gonna party like it's the Great Depression over here."

"That's in the thirties," Kurt pointed out, and when Todd rolled his eyes, he rolled his back. "I'm in remedial history and I know that."

"Didn't know you suck ups did the dummy track," Todd said with a slightly note of satisfaction.

"I haven't been learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln since preschool, slimeball," Kurt retorted a bit defensively. He wasn't awesome at school, but he didn't like feeling stupid. A C+ or a B- was fine.

"Huh." Hadn't thought of that. "Didn't even know you were in that class."

"Probably because you don't show up."

"Oh yeah."

Conversation lapsed again. One or the other of them tried several times as they made the cold climb, but after a few words they petered out. X-geek and Brotherhood goon. Apparently there just wasn't any common ground.

When they actually approached the castle, Todd tried to speed up a bit. He was afraid his fingers were about to break off and he wanted to get this over with. He didn't realize until he was about to go over the wall that fuzzy wasn't behind him.

Nope, he was still back in the trees, staring with an expression like someone had kicked his bear and then eaten all the sandwiches. Todd felt ill-used, but opted to just wait, and after a minute Kurt trudged over to join him.

"Don't poof in here, kay? Somethin' about monitors of mutant stuff." Todd figured that was a good enough warning and started up the wall.

"By who?"

"Uh, I guess Professor Weirdo over at your place, but the bossman didn't say in so many words."

"Oh." This wasn't a new discovery to everybody, then. Kurt looked over the view for a moment, taking in a crumbling bridge over the river that looked like a really awful height to be dropped from now, let alone as a baby. He shivered and hurried over the wall. At least hanging out with slimey had some advantages. Even without active use of his powers, there weren't a lot of people he could trust to keep up.

They were both quiet as they moved into the building itself. Even the crunching old snow felt way too loud, and the creak from the door as they squeezed through the narrow crack the door permitted might as well have been a gunshot.

Todd had spent the night here, but for his mental health he hadn't really looked at what was in the labs. He'd checked for traps and security, but he'd ignored the piles of junk that didn't seem to have any interest in reducing anyone to roasted toad. He didn't really want to know, but his choices were to follow fuzzy around or sit in a corner and be lame.

Kurt, for his part, had to take a moment to differentiate dusty, iced-over piles of junk into discrete shapes with real purpose. Suddenly not liking the silence, he veered to the other extreme and started babbling.

"A whole lot of this isn't metal that usually would be," he observed. Most of what he knew about crazy labs came from Forge and Mr. McCoy, but plastic and ceramic was flimsy or expensive, respectively. He knew that much. "I guess he was probably experimenting with his powers, too... So he'd have had to airlift all this stuff."

That wasn't hard to follow, except for that last bit. Magneto experimented with everything. "Too? What else? You know somethin' about this freaky-ass place?"

"Maybe," Kurt said noncommittally. Counters and cabinets didn't tell him anything, and any papers that had been in here had crumbled. Some quick poking in drawers and shelves produced test tubes and what he recognized from biology as dissection tools. Kurt shivered and closed the drawer back up.

Todd wasn't a fan of those things either. Sure, you could steal cool stuff from those labs if you showed up, but a dead frog pinned to a board didn't sit too right with him. He hopped back a little ways and opened what he thought might be a closet.

What he found was way, way freakier. At first he thought the little room was full of unused fish tanks, which would just be kind of weird, but scooting closer showed him that some of the glass cases contained faded blankets and a bundle of cables and electrodes that led down into the counters.

Yeah, back away slowly and find some brain bleach. But before he was back out the door, he knocked straight into fuzzy.

Very rattled, Todd took up babbling himself. "I'm sure, uh, this is all super legit medical stuff. Or... or it's for bunnies. Yeah, cute little bunnies." Todd didn't like rabbits. They had weird teeth and made him sneeze. "Those are the right size for bunnies, right?"

Kurt walked past him mechanically. He knew he wasn't really drawn to a certain tiny tank, that memories just didn't go back that far. He was just looking around and assigning meaning where he needed it. He reached into the one that was closest, since he didn't want to walk in any further. He pulled the wires out through a hole in the glass with more violence than he'd intended, wincing at the scraping noise.

He aimed his flashlight down inside. The contents reeked of mildew and looked a little crusty, but he could still make out a receiving blanket. Once upon a time it had been green, with little balloons on it. He pulled it aside a little ways, grimacing at the texture of the cloth, at once crumbly and oozing, to uncover an even moldier tiny teddy bear. It had never been a very cute toy, probably the kind you'd get in a hospital gift shop. He tried to pick it up and pulled his fingers back at the nasty texture under his fingers.

"This is way too freaky, yo. I'm never sleepin' again." Todd was peeking into another of the tanks that wasn't empty, though this just held a pink blanket. "What would you say to gettin' right the hell outta here?"

Kurt couldn't find his voice. He couldn't even keep his feet. He sank to the floor, tucking his knees into his chest and his chin into his knees, wrapping his arms tight around himself.

And Todd just tried to ignore that. He couldn't criticize. "I know the guy is kinda a psychopath, but... But, like, no one would really do what this looks like, right? It's gotta have been... Like... A children's hospital in a creepy castle... Dammit."

Kurt looked up at him in confusion. Maybe it wasn't charitable, but nothing in the world seemed likely to be gentle right now, and he wasn't buying this agitation. "Oh, so what kind of torture lab did you think you'd find?"

"Aw, screw you, fuzzy. Todd Tolansky's against hooking wires to babies. That's gonna screw over my reputation."

"Sorry." Kurt tried to collect himself, climbing awkwardly to his feet. He still didn't feel up to interacting, but being collapsed on the nasty floor in front of the Toad wasn't ideal. But he was just staring at the tank again.

Todd frowned at him, wheels spinning. He wasn't exactly dumb (despite popular report), but he didn't have the most active imagination and sometimes it took a moment to make connections. "Oh."

"Ja."

"Should I, uh, just leave you? Or..." Man, this was awkward. As a rule, he cared about the Crawler only a little bit more than, say, the guy who didn't yell for the cops when he broke into the change box on the air pump at the gas station. But he was pretty decent, and if Todd was freaked out just being here, how did he feel?

Kurt shook his head. "Think... I better get out, actually." He spun on the ball of his foot and practically bolted out the door. He didn't stop until he was outside the wall. He just let his mind float blankly for a while, the smell of mildew hovering around his nose.

"That's whack, yo." The slimeball jumped down from the wall, looking as close to sympathetic as Kurt suspected he could get. "For real?"

"Ja." Kurt closed his eyes.

"And I gotta sleep here."

"Oh, no way," Kurt said almost angrily. "Nobody should stay here. I'll port us both back and explain to my parents. We can set up the cot." It was probably still intact, though a bit battered from certain attempts to convert it into a toboggan. (He'd thought Hedy would want to sled, too.)

"Uh-uh." Todd shook his head emphatically. Him, in a cute little farmhouse trying to be a polite guest? Not gonna happen. He was aiming to be as nice as he could manage to the Crawler and he didn't know if he could even bring himself to go back into the castle, but he had... aversions to nice, happy families.

"What, are you going to go live in the woods? That'll go great."

"Naw, I'm totally fine. In fact, I'm gonna head back on in, warm up some beans on the space heater like a fancy guy." He caught Kurt's gaze, half incredulous and half disgusted. Stubbornly, he climbed back up the wall. About halfway. Then a violent shudder racked him and he landed heavily back in the snow with a little shriek.

He found himself staring at a pair of red boots and wondered absently what boots that fit weirdo two-toed feet looked like without a hologram. Todd looked up balefully at the furball and grimaced. "Can't do it, man. Creepy baby torture lab."

There was that kicked puppy look again. That was also probably pretty interesting looking without the inducer on. Kurt sighed. "Here, grab on and I'll port us back."

Todd rolled onto his back, then rocked to his feet in a surprisingly graceful movement. "You guys got a barn?"

"No, why would we-" Kurt raised his eyebrows. "You'd really rather hide in a barn?"

"Don't wanna get in the way, yo." Todd shrugged, and thankfully, Kurt finally dropped it.

"We don't have a barn. There hasn't been a real farm there since before I was born. But there is a woodshed that used to be an ice house, and Papi helped me turn the underground part into a clubhouse."

Papi? Clubhouse? He didn't even have the heart to make fun of the guy. Gross. "Sounds ok."

"It's pretty small, but it's wired well enough for a lamp and a radio. A heater would probably start a fire..." The ground made for some insulation, but it still sounded crappy to Kurt. "Why don't I just-"

"No. Clubhouse is fine."

Kurt took a deep, steadying breath. "You know, I hate lying to my parents." But he'd had a lot of practice. Without more warning, he grabbed Todd's shoulders and ported straight into the cramped little space.

While Todd was reeling from the surprise, Kurt felt his way over to the light from memory. The old brass lamp was extremely ugly, a Biedermeier revival piece his mother had been happy to get out of the house, and thanks to an unforgiving fluorescent bulb, it shuddered reluctantly to life. The ceiling was only a few inches above his head and the square room was only a few paces wide either way. The furnishings consisted of a bench long enough to lie on and a small table. A little box of dusty jars and emptied cracker boxes, a stack of comics and sci-fi novels, and an assortment of toy cars and action figures offered a not particularly flattering portrait of a younger Kurt.

By Todd's standards, it was pretty good, though he could have used a little extra heat. "This is cool."

"Yeah, I thought so." Kurt rolled his eyes. "When I was eight. Are you sure you don't want to just come inside?"

"For the millionth time. Go... do whatever you do when you hang with your folks."

"We're watching Die Hard."

Todd had thought he was done being surprised. "Huhwhatnow?"

Kurt smirked. "It's a Christmas movie."

"Christmas was yesterday."

"That's one of the great things about being Deutsch, mein freund. Christmas is almost two weeks long." He grinned this time, shaky but real. "I'll bring you some dinner later, I guess." With one more confused look back at Todd, Kurt climbed up the narrow little ladder that led to a trapdoor.

Todd sneezed as the spicy smell of sawdust drifted down, wishing blue boy had ported. That was a weird smell too, but he was used to that one. Freshly split wood? Not his thing.

He stretched out on the bench and closed his eyes. This place was pretty comfy, all told, and if his body heat would warm it up, he'd be set. Didn't know how Magneto was gonna find him at this rate, but he wasn't looking forward to getting rescued by baby-experiment guy anyway. He'd worry about that come morning. Crawler would probably be too busy watching... explosions and one-liners, apparently, to worry about him, so he'd try and make himself comfortable. Too bad winter wasn't good for bugs.

Kurt didn't port out of the little hideout, but he did go ahead and pop into his room to strip off his winter things and pull himself together for a minute before he wandered downstairs. He put off his parents questions by explaining he'd lost track of time getting to really walk around the place that had been his home all his life, and they'd been pleased enough by that. He got off with just a little mechanical scolding; his dinner was almost cold and he ought to have brought Hedy and he could worry people that way.

Dinner was fantastic, and lifelong gluttony was a pretty good cover for not feeling himself just yet. He didn't usually talk much while he ate, and once he had sauerbraten and a weiße with hot cocoa to follow in his stomach, he felt better. He wasn't ready to bring it up to his parents, though he was pretty sure they might know a bit more than they'd told him. Just like when he was little and they'd watch TV together, he stretched out on his stomach on the floor, chin in hands when he wasn't nibbling cookies. When the movie was over (and even his somewhat English-challenged father knew all the good lines), his father played carols on the piano. Mama did most of the singing, as both Kurt and his father sounded like crows being slammed in a doorway.

Finally, as a light snow tapped the windows, they said goodnight. Kurt was admonished in no uncertain terms to go to bed soon, especially after all that fresh air. They knew he was a bit nocturnal, though, so there was nothing odd about his choosing to watch TV while Hedy snored on the couch for a while.

As soon as he was sure they were asleep, he gathered some spare blankets and pillows and arranged the leftovers. Since Toad refused to accept real hospitality, he was very particular about what he could do, warming up the hot chocolate and grabbing a beer for each of them so he could try and interact a bit. He wasn't sure why he had to feel like a jerk because Tolanksy was being a jerk, but it didn't sit right with him.

He didn't port straight into the little chamber. He was too much a teenage boy himself to think of barging in like that. He tapped on the trap door. "Hey. Toad. You awake?" A cranky grumble seemed to be assent, so he popped down and set his tray on the table.

Todd was glad to be bothered. He'd been having seriously nasty dreams. Blearily he sat up and rubbed his eyes, and then his nose caught up with him. While he might not be super enthusiastic about the use of pickled cabbage as a main ingredient, but the pot roast smell more than made up for it. What was more, the plate was set out like he was at a restaurant, steaming and surrounded by cutlery, with a little roll on one side of the plate and a thermos that smelled of chocolate despite not being open yet on the other. "Huh. Wow, uh, won't your parents notice this all missin'?" He looked over and saw the fuzzball setting a stack of blankets on the bench. Since the guy wasn't looking, his tongue shot out and he popped down the captured roll in one doughy bite. Heavier than he'd expected.

"Mama expects me to eat all the leftovers before morning. I just need to do the dishes before I go to sleep." Showing off a little, he leaned against the wall, holding the two brown glass bottles between two fingers and between finger and thumb, popping the caps off and shoving them in his coat pocket with the other hand. "Hope you don't mind weiße."

Todd had no idea what that meant, but he could smell something alcoholic. Which actually made him a little nervous. What the hell was a goody-goody X-geek doing with beer? And while Todd was glad of the assumption that he'd be cool with that, he wasn't as enthusiastic as he tried to look. Alcohol was way too hard to buy and really tricky to steal, and on the rare occasion he'd bothered, it had mostly just made him ill. "What's, uh, what's the difference between... ficey and, y'know, regular?"

Kurt covered a snicker, mostly at Todd's attempt to pronounce the word. "Uh, sorry Bavarian thing. Basically it means white beer. Made with wheat and different yeast and stuff. Don't know the details. Papi's pretty protective of the beer secrets." Kurt crossed his arms over his chest and shivered. The cold sip reminded him he could still see his breath in here. "Hold on, I'm gonna try something."

He set down the drink and quickly ported in and out of the room three times. As he'd hoped, the sulfur smell was obnoxious, but the residual heat made the tiny space a lot more habitable. With both their body heat and the protective insulation of the foundation, the place would probably be habitable soon. That was worse being a little dizzy for a second.

"Hey, kudos. That was creative and crap." Todd made a toasting motion with his beer. He'd taken the moments spent in teleportation to hold it on his tongue a moment and get used to the taste. It wasn't as bad as the last stuff he'd tried, which had fallen off a truck to hear Lance tell the story. "I'mma just get out of this, finally." He unzipped the coat and tried to ignore the Crawler wrinkling his nose. The heavy cloth and the cold had taken care of the trademark smell until now.

But Kurt wasn't going to be an impolite host, even if his guest was the Toad. His parents had taught him a lot about how to fuss over people, and he'd never had much of a chance to practice before. "So, um, now what? You want to just... sleep down here, I guess? And wait around for Magneto during the day?" If Kurt's voice iced over a little, it was probably forgivable.

"Guess so, dawg." He shrugged. "Might see if he'll let me stay on a couple days if the food's this good."

"Aw, but I'll waste away without my leftovers," Kurt said melodramatically.

"Beats dumpster-diving, yo." Todd might have enjoyed watching the Crawler balk a little bit. He decided to blame the beer (he'd had, say, a quarter of it already), or maybe he was just being a creep.

"Yeah, um, so..." Kurt found himself looking at his shoes. "Um, I got you what I could from the linen closet. It's mostly old stuff, um, that won't be missed. Should still be warm. Just a little bit worn." Now he really was being a jerk.

"S'cool, yo." Todd punched his arm. He might be bitter enough to make someone feel rotten for actually trying to do him a good turn, but he was sort of inclined to fix it. "Go ahead and sit down." He scooted over on the bench, leaning on the pile of blankets. They were a little faded and he saw some holes, but they smelled like some kinda flower, and not in a gross soap way.

He paused while the furball sat rather stiffly beside him. Todd hadn't thought before about the fact that he was back to himself. No inducer at home. He was suddenly very curious. "So, uh, how'd you get here from the castle?"

Not what he should have said if he wanted to make blue boy more comfortable, but it did get him answers. Kurt breathed deep, took a long swig from the bottle, and shook his head. "I guess Mystique got cold feet. She ran off with me, but she lost me on the way. Papi and Mama found me in the river, and I've been here ever since."

"In the river?"

"Back that way." He nodded to his right. "Not much to look at this time of year, since it's all snowed over."

"Oh, that is messed up," Todd said. What the hell was wrong with a lady who could turn into a bird or whatever letting a baby float down a river? He had an angry gut reaction when it came to little kids being left alone, and it came out with vitriol he hadn't planned for. "But, uh, you got the only people on earth who'd take care of the little freak baby that washed up, huh?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Kurt agreed, not really minding "freak" when it came from the Toad. "They're pretty great."

"Not a lotta neighbors, then?" Todd tried to mimic Kurt's swig. That was... burny.

"There's a town down the road. I haven't been since I was a baby. The reaction... wasn't good. They know I'm up here, but back then they didn't even have many ideas about what might be up. Though apparently the local kids scare each other with the devil baby."

"Fuck 'em," Todd said throatily.

"Yeah, I don't even care anymore." He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. "Not for me, anyway. I've been worried since the mutant thing came out. No one was planning on coming to exorcise the devil baby, but now that they might figure out there's a mutie in this house..."

That was an ugly thought. Todd thought of the Crawler's earlier warning and nodded. "Hope they're too lazy."

"Yeah." He shook his head. "I guess my parents would be weird either way. I mean, a couple writers into living off the land? I'm barely around now. Hopefully people'll just... forget."

Todd suspected that they might not have been planned to be quite as reclusive as they'd turned out, but he didn't say anything. They were quiet for a few moments, and he busied himself with the rest of dinner. The cocoa was amazing. He didn't indulge his sweet tooth all that much.

"This got marshmallows?"

"And cinnamon. It's a house specialty." Kurt smiled and stood to gather up the dishes. Todd set down the thermos on the tray. "I'll grab the bottle tomorrow. Papi reuses them. Anyway, uh, sleep well, mein fruend." He companionably patted Todd's shoulder and disappeared, leaving behind one more dose of slightly smelly heat.

He didn't need to be great at context cues to get that particular little bit of German, especially the second time. Definitely his least unfavorite X-dork, that guy.

Kurt dropped off to sleep and unpleasant dreams in just enough time to get him into pajamas, but Todd had dozed just enough that he was a little edgy and knew what kind of a night he'd have. He was less thrilled about this tiny room now, but he tried to entertain himself while he nursed the beer. He toyed with the radio, but it was hard to tell the static from the talk radio and the music was dorky. He tried to read the one book in Kurt's stash that was in English. Had some aliens on the cover, which should have been about as cool as a book got, but recreational reading wasn't really his thing since he'd given up Goosebumps. His attention wandered too much to have any idea what was going on five pages in, and he gave up.

But by then the beer had caught up with him. It was kind of nice, actually. More buzzy than dizzying. He'd have to remember to eat a bunch of pot roast next time Lance stole PBR.

He made up the bench into a bed and curled up under as many layers as would stay on. It wasn't much colder than the boarding house when they got behind on the gas bill, and Pietro wasn't running around complaining so no one could sleep.

Not that he was really sleeping, just daydreaming. Todd had a pathetically modest fantasy life. He just wanted things to be better. A comfy bed and decent dinner spread was sometimes a nice enough idea to please him as he drifted off. Since he kind of had both right now, he had to expand a little bit. He wasn't optimistic enough to think about not being a mutie pariah every time he left his room, not after today's discoveries. So he settled on his favorite middle ground.

It was a boy kind of night.

Todd tended to fall in love with girls They were pretty and soft and so alien that it was safe. His odd idea of love, fomented in the head of a kid who'd seen too little of it, insisted on perfection. He could put girls on magical, divine pedestals of awesomeness. He was perfectly certain not a one of them would be stupid enough to reciprocate, and he could always fuel the flames of passion by doing ridiculous things for female approval. Wanda was his current fixation, and Wanda was amazing and everything. But he couldn't even imagine her kissing him, never mind snuggling or dating or running away to get married.

Boys weren't magic. He didn't think his chances were any better, but that was why it was all in the realm of daydreams. His imagination was at least up to actual interactions. He could guess what a boy's hand would feel like in his. They were nicer dreams, more rewarding, but they didn't have the elevating factor that picturing Wanda as a goddess of, probably, pain and eyeliner did. And because he knew dudes weren't perfect, he never had to consider any daydreams of crushes seriously.

So it didn't even really bother him that the Crawler turned up. Didn't mean anything more than it ever did. Did raise the question as to why this felt more reasonable than imagining an end to mutant suppression, but when visions of softness in the form lavender-smelling sheets and blue fuzz eased into real dreams, no creepy baby labs materialized. So he came out on top anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Kurt wasn't so lucky, that night or for a few more. Talking with Todd was actually one of the better distractions from the dark mood that had settled on him, since the Toad could usually be goaded into being annoying whenever things might get dark. Looking after his guest also proved a welcome occupation, since staying up to deliver dinner and chat made him tired enough that he did get a little sleep.

He really was turning into a first-order creep, wasn't he? Hanging out to trade insults and speculation with the Brotherhood's most embarrassing representative calmed him down. Spending Christmas with his wonderful, loving parents didn't.

Though he was only a  _little_ angry at his suspicion that they might have guessed something about a haunted mountain only miles from their home, and just down the river if you were a small, floating object. He kind of understood that.

There were a lot of quiet places in their lives, after all. Losing the chance to visit friends and relatives as a family was one burden he hated to think about having put on them. He sometimes thought about the normal child they might have adopted if he hadn't turned up when he had, usually imagined as looking like the plans for a little brother he'd been gently cajoled into abandoning at age six. That was out, conversationally. Lost opportunities in academia, limited trips to church, the time required to home-school... All those old clouds hung around the Wagners, acknowledged without turning into resentment. This was just one more.

It upset him much more to be thinking about his biological mother (and mulling horribly over possibilities for a biological father, when he couldn't stop himself) while he was supposed to be having the most important time of the year with them. They'd noticed he was quieter and he'd been working hard not to worry them, but Mystique and the lab and Magneto weighed much too heavily on his thoughts for comfort or his usual energy.

Even during a little more caroling. Papi was going easy on the piano tonight so Mama could focus on her singing, and Kurt was reduced to mainly audience and coffee refills. Tonight his inclination to quiet and attempts to overcompensate made him over-affectionate even for Kurt. He was contenting himself with petting Hedy to keep from doing too much extra hugging now that he'd noticed. He even agreed to join in on a few songs, which even the dog clearly disapproved of. Kurt wasn't sure if he should attribute that to her being a music lover or attuned to horrid frequencies that no doubt resulted from his attempts at singing.

Todd had learned, over the past couple days, that he could come and go pretty much as he wanted as long as he did it at night. The bear had stopped considering him a threat, apparently, and the door was shadowed by the kind of heavy bushes the Wagners favored for reasons even his imagination could manage. He was just returning from a day of waiting around for Magneto and trying to dare himself to go back to the castle when he heard music from the Wagner house.

He moved in that direction mostly as a challenge. The mountainous country was dark in a way his urban experience had never prepared him for, and previous trips under Magneto's auspices had kept him too occupied for much stargazing or appreciating infinite frozen stillness. The house looked so warm and inviting it was kind of insulting as he skulked up to the window.

A red curtain hung down and snow on the sill shrunk his view even further, but he had a lot of practice squinting through keyholes. This wasn't much different.

The room was lit by a fire and lamps covered in golden glass, falling on deep reds and browns on the walls and furniture. There was Fuzzy in all his natural glory, draped upside down on the couch with a gingerbread man sticking out of his mouth, dropping crumbs on his fanned-out hair. There was the bear, dozing and looking a lot smaller and safer in there. He'd really wanted a look at the parents, but they were so absolutely ordinary looking that he was disappointed. He'd kind of hoped to be able to recognize people who would raise a lost mutie as their own. He'd been thinking maybe they were kind of on the ugly side themselves, or clearly members of a pro-freak cult, or anything but... people. Good people who'd desperately wanted a child and had taken the one who came to them.

People not everybody got to meet. Todd went from mildly amused to angry, the kind of nasty, baleful anger that sucked the most. The kind directed inward. He hopped quickly back to his hideout and lay on the rumpled, no longer herby-smelling bed and scowled.

Kurt knocked on the trapdoor when he'd been stewing for more than an hour and had mostly cooled down to a bad mood. "Yeah, come on down." The Crawler bamfed in, warming the room a little, and set down a bowl of soup with a sharper smelling beer than the last time, plus a plate of round, white cookies.

"Hey, so I dug these out for you," he announced cheerfully. He held up a blue sweater and pair of dark jeans. "I think they'll fit okay. My old stuff, obviously, but I patched up the tail hole and everything."

Oh, yeah, normal people changed clothes more than once a week. Nice, normal people who hung out with their folks having musical family meals and hugging dogs, even when they were twice as weird looking as some lowlife freak the whole world had given up on.

"From a couple years ago, but I was growing and stuff. Not worn to pieces, see?" God, he just kept talking. Castle torture-baby was starting to look pretty good all of a sudden. "These are pfeffernusse. They're my favorite, but be prepared. They're spicy, and kind of hard." The fuzzball grinned and him and suddenly his irritation all melted away.

So this was the detritus of someone else's awesome life. That was what he lived on anyway. He just usually didn't get the chance to watch it happen. There had to be some reason the elf got the cozy farmhouse and the puppy and the Toad got jack. "That's what she said," he added tiredly.

He'd kind of hoped to scandalize the geek, but Kurt just snorted. "Who is she and why does she say such things?"

Todd almost returned a perfunctory "your mom," but that didn't seem right for a whole bunch of reasons. He just scooted up to the table to eat. "So, uh, your parents let you have this?" He held up the beer Kurt had already opened.

"I forget, you're American." Kurt snickered. "You only have to be fourteen here."

"No fair." Todd tucked in for a moment, enjoying his fourth day of regular, delicious food. If this kept up much longer he might not be able to play count-the-ribs anymore. "So, uh, heard you guys when I came back today. Your mom's got a set of lungs."

"Not the way I'd put it," Kurt said, amused. He took a sip as he settled onto the end of the bench. "But yeah, she used to be in choirs. Poor woman got stuck with us."

Todd tried to take a swig of beer, not liking the idea of a boyscout wimp out-drinking him no matter how much of a head start he had, and almost choked. Well, that was pretty much fizzy tar, wasn't it? He waited for Kurt to stop laughing at him. "S'pretty cool. I mean, multitalented."

"Ja, she's pretty nifty." Then the inevitable happened. "What's yours like?"

To his credit, Kurt realized almost immediately he'd bounded heedlessly onto thin ice. "Mein Gott, I'm the worst person ever, aren't I?"

In fact, the contrition made it bitterly funny rather than just bitter. "Nah, we were both thinkin' it, elf. Don't really got one. Well, I mean, she exists and stuff, and I have an address written down someplace. I get a birthday card every couple years."

"Oh."

"I don't really know for sure why she ditched out on me." He wasn't sure why he kept talking, except no one knew besides him, and letting it go was cathartic. And maybe it'd make Kurt think about how unfairly, incredibly lucky he was. "Dad, yeah. She never let me forget that he walked out a couple days after the nurse handed him a freak-baby. But sometimes she was just as mad about it as me, so... Dunno. Maybe she was just pissed because he figured I wasn't his."

"Jackass," Kurt said, the pathetically mild diatribe falling flat despite his better hopes. Todd elbowed him.

"Don't talk about my dad that way."

"Wait, huh?"

"Best revenge is not letting him off bein' my dad, right? This?" He jabbed outsized, webbed thumbs into his own chest. "This came straight from him. Nothin' he can do about it. So he's my dad, don't rag on him."

"...I get you."

Todd thought he actually might. Weird. "Anyway, maybe she got tired of havin' a little mutie around. Maybe it was booze or... y'know, just too many bad days in a row." He tapped his forehead meaningfully. He had no idea what was wrong with her. Bipolar was the last news he'd heard, but he didn't know enough about her or how being messed in the head worked to judge whether that was fair. "She left me outside a police station. I was three. Mostly foster homes after that. She visited sometimes, but she's, ah, not supposed to see me alone no more."

"You don't really have to keep talking if you don't want to."

Todd turned to glare at him, momentarily feeling that pathetic anger spark. He didn't want pity, and while he was, in a way, trying to hurt the guy, he wasn't ready to deal with disgust. But he didn't really see either. Good-natured, sheltered little model citizen just nodded, and Todd relaxed again.

"It's ok. And it wasn't as bad as yer probably thinking. She's a tiny little lady, shorter than me. Couldn't put much hurt on nobody, no matter if she wanted to." Which she had.

"I don't really think there's such a thing as just a little..." Kurt couldn't find a word he didn't think would distress Todd one way or another, all over again. "You want me to leave you alone?"

"What, with that on my mind an' a beer? You must really hate me, Blue." Todd elbowed him again, more gently. "What I wouldn't give for TV."

Not a nickname he'd heard since Tabby. Hadn't thought of that in a while. "I'd offer to port you inside, but you'd just be pissed again, ja?" Even Kurt didn't like the idea in that particular case. He'd worked out how to explain to his parents if he brought Todd home, but if one of them came down to find him there, well, it'd be a lot more awkward. That and their chances of finding something in a language Todd understood hinged on a subtitled movie airing at the right time.

"It ain't pissed. Just not lookin' for charity, yo."

"What do you mean, you're not looking for charity?" He was honestly curious. "Which it isn't, by the way, not really. But when have you ever turned down free stuff? What about the time you guys were causing  _accidents_ so people would give you appliances?"

"First off, that was so Pietro would leave us alone, mostly. The free stuff was a bonus." Not one of their prouder moments, admittedly, but what did he care about proud moments? Being a welcome freak for a change had been nice. "Fine. I don't want  _your_ charity. I don't wanna sit there while Mom and Pop Wagner make cookies and sing songs and the bear fetches slippers. Ain't for me. This is way better."

Kurt sighed, set down an empty bottle and gave him an extra-bony shoulder bump. "You're still invited, Todd. I'm gonna try and get some sleep." He popped out and Todd scooted over to sit in the epicenter of teleportation-heat.

He didn't really want to finish the nasty beer, but letting booze go to waste went against what little he had in the way of ethics. He finished it off in a hurry, trying to ignore the taste, and flopped onto the bed. Dizziness caught him up within minutes. Maybe the soup had been less substantial than the meal last time. He didn't feel all that awesome, or up to constructing some rewarding dreams.

But he cuddled up to his bedding just the same. Might be there was a little lavender left.

Kurt ported right into the kitchen to put away the dishes. As he was stacking them, Hedy bumped his leg, asking to go out. He went ahead and leashed her instead of just opening the door. His night vision might be excellent, but he didn't like to risk a blind, aging dog to the absolute middle of the night. So Kurt headed outside with his coat open and his hat half hanging off. It wouldn't take long. Hedy wasn't that big a fan of snow before bed.

And of course he didn't bother with his inducer. Not when he was home and safe. He wasn't paying attention to anything but telling Hedy she was a good girl until she barked.

Hedy did not feel like a good girl. She suspected she might, in fact, be a bad dog. She was cold and sleepy and she wanted to herd her boy back inside. It was distracting. The wind was in the wrong direction, but she still should have noticed the new stranger scent (on top of the very interesting one from her boy's friend that she was apparently not to bark about).

Before he'd consciously taken in more than a human shape in the trees,Kurt panicked. He always did, but it felt particularly shameful now as he and Hedy landed on the kitchen floor. Maybe he could have fixed things, or found a way to hide, or flipped on his inducer so he could convince the guy he hadn't seen anything. He wasn't a child with no options anymore.

Maybe the man had just been a backpacker. It did happen, though not usually this time of year. Had he seen snowshoes? A person really ought to have snowshoes to be moving around freely hereabouts. Just a snowshoe-er...The one thing he was sure was that he hadn't just seen Todd. Though all he really remembered was a silhouette, the Toad held himself quite differently from someone with a normal spine. The slight anatomical variations were crystal clear to _him_.

No, he couldn't talk himself into that. He only dragged his feet a little on the way up to his parents room. They were disappointed, though the way it wasn't directed at him just made him feel more guilty. They'd hoped this wouldn't happen again. He had had the option to turn on his inducer even when he was standing between the woodshed and the kitchen door. It could have been avoided.

He mechanically went through checking for preparedness, thinking back over previous incidents. Nothing really awful had happened. Those children who'd come on dares for a while had thrown a few things, led to him hiding in a tree for six hours in the rain. The missionary types who'd worked their way all the way up the mountain and to the front door had come to nothing, but their hysterical accusations had left Kurt hiding in his clubhouse for two days. The police officer looking for a missing hiker had been told the honest truth, and had just decided not to mention them. The worst had never happened.

But that didn't mean they shouldn't be ready. The danger was greater now that news of mutants had broken. Kurt and his parents talked through their strategy for most of the night, and when Kurt nodded off on the couch, he'd forgotten to slip off and tell Todd.

Morning was ordinary enough. Kurt made breakfast again, jittery from lack of sleep and overabundance of nerves. He was lucky he only burned the one crepe. He helped with winding up some yarn (one of the few fine tasks that his fingers were better for), polishing silver, just... keeping busy. His parents were in a similar mood and didn't let him out of their sight. Eventually he just had to say he was taking a shower. He rushed through it, leaving his hair sopping and soap on the tip of one ear, and ported straight into the underground hideout. Fortunately, Todd wasn't changing or anything embarrassing.

Just asleep. The noise and the smell woke him up abruptly and he fell out of bed (or, well, off the blanket-padded bench) with a squawk. "Whoa, fuzzy, what the hell?"

"Sorry. Um, in a hurry. So, well, someone saw me last night."

Todd didn't have too much trouble with that as a concept, even as he rubbed at his eyes. "Whoa. Okay, so, like..."

"Well, we kind of have an evacuation plan if we really, really need it. It's never gotten that bad before. You might not want to go out today, I guess?" Kurt sighed.

"That's rough. Gonna be beyond bored." Toss sat cross-legged on the floor, chin in his hands. His expression was weary but accepting. Kurt found himself wishing someone would just yell at him for being an idiot already. Maybe it'd take the edge off. "Evacuation, huh? So, uh, what, do we sled down to safety?"

"No, there's a little abandoned ranger's cabin about, uh, maximum port range away." Kurt cut to the chase. "You really better come inside."

Todd knew he was right. That was just a safety thing. But he'd had a rough night and he wasn't feeling more up to hanging around the Brady Bunch over there. Quite the contrary. "I'd be in the way, dawg."

"It's not safe for you to stay here," Kurt pointed out. "And really, my parents aren't going to be in a mood to argue. If... when we know we're set again, it'll be easier, probably. And-"

"Hey, Kurt." He stopped at his name. "No."

"Toad- Todd." Kurt might not share any blood with his parents, but he looked a lot like his mom when he set his hands on his hips. "Come on, in the house. I'll just grab you in another second."

"How many people can you take when you port?" Todd could see he'd made his point. "It'll be fine. I'll see yah when things cool down." Kurt opened his mouth to argue, clearly considered grabbing Todd and teleporting with or without his ok. "Fuzzy. Hair's freezing."

He checked, discovered it was true and sighed. Something about icicles forming around your ears made it hard to put up a strong front. "I'll be back for you." Kurt went ahead and popped back where he'd come from.

Todd sat still for a moment, then carefully changed back out of the clothes Kurt had loaned him. He even tried to fold those and the blankets. If things got nasty, then at least he wouldn't leave a mess behind. He zipped his coat back up tight and switched off the lamp, not feeling like staring at Kurt's old toys and comic books. They were mostly Disney. What a dork.

He stayed in a sulky pile of sullen teenager in the dark until he heard many more footsteps than Kurt and his parents could account for several times over. Maybe he should have accepted that invitation.


End file.
